"What a disappointment..."

I was so happy.. it was March 24. The day EB finally got Final Fantasy XI in stock. I excitedly drove there to pick it up. When i got home i went through the RIGOROUS but necessary installation process. By the time that was over(it took about 3 hours) i started playing. I was a red mage hume starting in bastok. The first thing that appalled me was that you can LOSE levels when ever you die. This is the first MMORPG i have owned to have such an atrocious feature. Other then that.. so far so good. By the time I hit level 8 i was severely bored. The game is sooo freakin boring! That's when i quit... Anyway..

Graphics 9/10 Quite possibly the best thing the game has to offer. While the graphics arent up to scratch with other ps2 games, they excell as far as MMORPGs go.

Story 1/10 The story is practically non existent when you have a bunch of real life players running around swearing.. but this goes for every MMORPG so it didnt affect the score much.

Gameplay 2/10 You either love it, or you hate it. I'm on the hate side. The gameplay is horrible, unlike Dark Age of Camelot or Everquest online adventures the game gets incredibly boring after the first 5 levels. It lacks the satisfaction that comes with most mmorpgs. And FFXI is VERY harsh when it comes to dying. It IS possible to go from level 50 back to level 1 if you keep dying. And like most mmorpgs, getting into a good group can be frustrating.

Environment 5/10(this is not graphics this is the world that it takes place in) The world of Vana'diel has its ups and downs. Some ups would be the creativity and innovation that went into creating it. The downs would be how incredibly small it is. I was able to get from bastok to sandoria (they are on the opposite side of the world from each other) in a half an hour! If you have played EQOA or DAoC you will realize how small that is.

Sound/Music 8/10 Unlike most MMORpgs the battle sound effects are TOLERABLE! And the music is super. Nobou did another good job on this game.

Replayability 7/10 This score is for someone who doesn't get bored of this game easily. (And who doesnt mind paying the extra dollar per month per character!) There are alot of races to try and jobs to do. Thumbs up there.

Overall 3/10(not an average) This game to me was highly disappointing. I'd rather just stick to the other Final Fantasies. I'm not sure why Square Enix even opted to make Final Fantasy XI a MMORPG. I'm not sure what possessed them to do that. But hopefully they redeem themselves with FFXII.

(A note: This is a review of Final Fantasy XI NOT the HDD. The HDD is amazing and I will never use memory cards again)